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OpenMarket: March 2013

In this era of sequestration, why is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) awarding millions in grants to an organization under Congressional investigation?

The group in question is the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC), a union-backed "nonprofit" organization that bills itself as providing a path towards upward mobility and a better life for restaurant workers. Yet it is under investigation over charges of alleged multiple health violations, and is notorious for exploiting vulnerable...

We won the case of Kazman v. Frontier Oil, knocking out 100% of the attorneys' fees in a $0 shareholder derivative suit that made shareholders worse off because it was brought solely for the benefit of the attorneys. Details at Point of Law.

President Obama’s recently leaked immigration bill left off the most important component of an immigration bill: the immigration part. Given the fact that the Chamber of Commerce and the big unions -- the AFL-CIO and the SEIU -- were still locked in vain negotiations over a potential guest work program, the president clearly did not want to leak a version that would step on the toes of his two biggest backers. Unfortunately, without a robust work visa system, the White House bill will be a disaster.
The bill contains 95 pages on “worksite...

In one of the truly moronic acts from a government official, the Department of Education posted a mangled quote of Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong on its website as the saying of the day for children. It is clear that whoever approved it had no idea who Mao was or the atrocities that he committed,...

The government told people to switch from saturated animal fats to unsaturated vegetable fats. But that advice may have killed a lot of people. As David Oliver notes, a recent study "in the British Medical Journal" shows that "those who heeded the advice" from public-health officials "to switch from saturated fats to polyunsaturated vegetable oils dramatically reduced their odds of living to see 2013," incurring up to a "60% increase in risk of death by switching from animal fats to vegetable oils." This possibly deadly medical advice has a...

A recent post in ACSH Dispatch examines an interesting question: How likely is it that some U.S. communities have elevated cancer rates, a.k.a, "cancer clusters," because of chemical pollution? The answer: not very.
ACSH points to an enlightening article published in Slate by George Johnson, who notes:

Time after time, the clusters have turned out to be statistical illusions—artifacts of chance. … The Erin Brockovich incident, one of the most famous, is among...